Charter schools speculators
Just what we don’t need — another opportunity for unscrupulous charter school operators to scam millions out of our public school budgets.
They collect the money upfront, then shut down and go bankrupt, sending displaced students back into the public school system whose budget has been cut by the money those charter school operators ran off with.
Local and state officials must not be cajoled into recklessly throwing millions into charter schools.
We need strict oversight, verified standards, and no payouts in advance of the operators providing the educational services they are charging the state for.
If these private operators of charter schools are so sure of success, then they should be able to get bank loans to finance their operations until they produce the results they get state funding for.
Our public tax dollars for education should pay for performance, not for charter school speculators who in South Florida alone have collected $7 million for schools that never opened or closed shortly thereafter.
Carl Buehler,
Plantation
This story was originally published January 28, 2016 at 8:26 PM with the headline "Charter schools speculators."